Shipping belongings from UK to USA

[dancingcrab 0]

Hello all. For those of you that read and posted in my previous topic, you have my thanks. I have now packed and inventoried my stuff. Phew.

I'm now trying to figure out insurance for the belongings that I'm shipping. I was basically wondering if anyone had any problems shipping their stuff (e.g. damaged boxes/goods, missing items, delays, etc), and if so, how the insurance people handled it.

Problems that I'm facing include: (1) if I want cover for individually missing items, I need to have provided a detailed inventory for each box; and (2) general confusion surrounding 'under-insurance' - as in, say I have 130 CDs and quote an estimate of their combined worth at £650 (£5 each) - the policy seems to make a big thing about this, but I don't understand it or the jargon it uses.

One of my big problems is that I don't have a lot of £$£$£$ considering all the payments and investments I've made recently, so throwing £150-£200 at insurance (a rough 2.75% of my belongings' total worth) seems a little steep for something that will hopefully not be necessary. But maybe that's just foolish thinking!

If anyone has any tips or suggestion regarding this, I would greatly appreciate them.

[dancingcrab 0]

Okay, looking through form 3299 (Declaration For Free Entry Of Unaccompanied Articles). Need help. (Bear with me, a little complicated.)

Part IV, section D requires a list of any articles checked in Part IV, section C. The only boxes I think I need to check in section C are those under '(B) For residents and non-residents ONLY', where I would declare 'Foreign household effects acquired abroad and used for [less/more] than a year'.

Problem: the 'helpful' guide my mover has provided with this form tells me to pay particular attention to terminology, noting in particular (I quote):

Household goods: Furniture & household goods, except personnal effects

Personal effects: Clothing, jewelry, photographic equipment, tape recorders, stereo components, vehicles, etc.

So where does that leave me with 'Foreign household effects [...]'? My possessions are DVDs, CDs, video games and books, a few soft toys, a board game, some Lego, four small (can be held comfortably in one hand) African ornaments, etc., I assume all these to be personal effects, not household goods.

Depending on how I read the entry, I either have to list absolutely everything ('household effects' = personal effects), along with US$ value and date of purchase (to which I have NO idea), or list nothing at all ('household effects' = household goods).

Please help!

Edited August 10, 2009 by d00der

[canadian_wife 1,822]

Well, to me, things like ornaments, toys, etc are more considered personal effects since they are typically used for personal entertainment/enjoyment than for household use (IE a vacuum, applicances, clothing, etc) but I think that your DVD's and CD's might be household as they typically list 'books' under household goods.

As for the insurance itself, I can't really help. My moving company insured all my belongings so I didn't have to do anything but it was for my piece of mind that I opted to get it and I was transporting my good overland (not overseas). The only thing that frustrated me is my belongings arrived separatly over a span of 5 days, so I'd receive my boxspring but not my mattress, my pots came early, but I had to wait for my cutlery. So that was frustrating but it goes with the territory.

Good luck.

Edited August 10, 2009 by canadian_wife

[dancingcrab 0]

Thanks for your response again, canadian_wife! Very useful, although possibly not what I wanted to hear. Looks like I've a long inventory ahead of me.

Did you import any CDs/DVDs/books? If so, did you declare each and every item along with US$ value and date of purchase?

[canadian_wife 1,822]

Well, each of your boxes should have an inventory list, so you could just add to that to make it easier for you.

I did import CD's/Books etc and I just estimated the value based on when I bought them (obviously they devalue over time) and I just ball-pakred the date of purchase (summer 2007 etc). Are they ACTUALLY going to check if, in fact, you bought the DVD of Kill Bill Vol. II in the winter of 2009? No, it is just for inventory purposes.

Good luck.

[featherB 1]

My only "horror" story (for which read: turn of events I'm not very happy about) is that Googling my (maiden, very uncommon) name now brings up pages and pages of results where I seem to be listed as an "importer" or "shipper" or somesuch, along with my date of birth, date I shipped my stuff, and a ton of other stuff. I suggest anyone else who's shipped their possessions an has an uncommon enough name that such a thing would stand out, try looking themselves up on Google. This really really annoys me, for some reason!

The shipping itself went wonderfully. I brought over three boxes containing a few books, CDs, various personal knicknacks, my favorite saucepans, a couple of winter coats, and a duvet. Got my Mum to help out with the tedious business of filling out the inventory sheets - we listed things like "52 CD albums", rather than going into too much detail, but the list was pretty long.

[dancingcrab 0]

Hello featherB!

Yes, I believe I will list quantities of stuff like you. Do you remember filling in the 3299 form? I've now heard from my movers, and they said only to put stuff down that I've bought within the last year, but this seems to contradict what the forms says. It's all amazingly obtuse.

[Nich-Nick 3,354]

It's confusing, but here's my understanding of some of your questions--

You are allowed to bring in goods duty free that were used by you or your family for at least a year. You declare new stuff and are subject to importation duty on it. So if you've got a brand new camera and laptop, etc still sealed in new packaging, they are going to suspect perhaps you intend to sell that or something and I believe you would be charged duty. You can bring something you declare as a "gift" that's new, but only up to $100. So your shipping company wants you to separate out less than one year old so the Customs and Border Protection can assess your duty. All of our stuff was "more than one year old" (whether it really was or not.) If it's a bunch of various items that a normal person would use, they don't research how old they think it is. If it's 25 brand new, in the box iPods, then it's a different story. Are you seeing the difference?

I had looked over that form 3299 and it was clear as mud to me. After going through the process, hindsight is only slightly clearer. You didn't ask this question but I'll tell you a little about the process. That form is presented to clear the goods when they are picked up in the US. Things arrive at the port and every container is xrayed before trucks can leave the port with them. Each ship owner has an agent responsible for the getting the containers from the port to a warehouse. Then all the individual containers or boxes like yours can be divided out by the ship's agent to the various people coming to claim them . Your mover has people on the US side that will clear you shipment using that form in order for it to be released from the warehouse. They load it and deliver to your door.

Sometimes they send a whole container to secondary inspection at a Customs Warehouse (instead of the ship agent's warehouse) where CBP opens containers and look at what's inside. Only a third level inspection would have CBP opening your individual boxes. So chances are nobody is going to even look in your boxes, just your list. All of this will be transparent to you, but it will explain why it may take a while for your things to get to your house. I only know this stuff because we live close to the Port of Houston and wanted to have our things sent there for us to collect in a pick-up truck, rather than arriving on the East Coast and coming by moving van across country. The funny thing about that form 3299 was we asked if we could clear customs ourselves instead of having a middle man do that. So I call Houston CBP office that clears shipments to tell him I didn't understand that form. He said, "I try to make this easy as possible...no forms...just bring me your list of what's in the boxes." So it took 2 minutes for him to punch the release we needed to pick up our 23 boxes from the warehouse and we didn't ever fill out that form. He barely glanced at a very long list. Our list we provided to the company in the UK and the CBP guy was a spreadheet. We didn't have a list on each box. We did make labels with the Name, Shipping ref #, and Box number to stick on the boxes in several places. The spreadsheet list was broken down by BOX 1...itemized list, BOX 2....itemized list. That seemed to be sufficient.

This document should help you. It's from US Customs. You'll have to pick through it to find what applies to a non-resident. I defines household vs personal effects and tells about prohibited items, etc. http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/newsro....ctt/moving.doc

Edited August 11, 2009 by Nich-Nick

[dancingcrab 0]

Thanks for the comprehensive response!

Read through the document, seems that most of my stuff is considered household goods after all, as canadian_wife suggested.

So you didn't declare anything as less than a year old? No problems? Right now I've put aside a handful of stuff equating to about $365 worth as less than a year old. Any idea how much duty that'll cost? Should I bother?

[Nich-Nick 3,354]

We didn't bother with ages of stuff. Everything was household goods more than a year old is what we said. The container our stuff was in also got picked to go to secondary inspection. We had one pallet holding the 23 boxes and that was all shrink wrapped in plastic and sealed with ties put on my 1st Move International in the UK. None of it was touched ...still wrapped, sealed and on the pallet when we went to collect it. Can't tell you what you should do, just what we did.

You might want to look at the CBP website about the duty. They've got a big database of questions and answers. We personally just didn't worry about it, even going here (photo)

Edited August 12, 2009 by Nich-Nick